Intelligent Life @ The Nerdery

The Nerdery is a company and culture created by nerds, and for nerds, founded in 2003 by three programmers. Now an interactive development firm hundreds strong, we remain industry leaders in helping our partners imagine and execute interactive projects. Our engineering roots inform our approach by focusing on preserving investment in existing systems and processes while taking full advantage of all the benefits modern technologies have to offer.

You Can't Stump The Nerdery

By focusing on technical consulting and execution while leaving industry insights and strategic genius to our partners, we get the chance to sharpen our skills on hundreds of challenging projects every day. It sounds simplistic, but the rest takes care of itself. Get the best and brightest nerds, make them happy, keep them here, work with great partners, get cool interactive projects, nail ‘em, wash, rinse, repeat.... We’ve built The Nerdery to be the ultimate destination for nerds – a safe haven for them to not only survive, but thrive.

Good code doesn’t happen by accident; we set the bar high with development standards. We empower programmers to set company standards on development tools because they have their ears to the ground on emerging tech, and we’d be foolish not to pick their brains and follow suit. All part of our distributed leadership model, our development committees consist of no managers – just developers nominated and elected by their peers.

People Who Work at The Nerdery

FOUR HUNDRED NINETY-EIGHT

Staffing by Discipline

Discipline

Staffing

PHP

159

Actionscript

30

HTML\CSS

106

Zend

68

Java

76

.NET

102

Databases/SQL

12

Python

45

Rails

24

Pick

18

Symfony

16

Drupal

41

Wordpress

101

Flash

42

iPhone Apps

55

Javascript

210

Bike Commuters

6

Screen Space

400+ Square Feet

Adults Who Could be Killed by the Total Caffeine Consumed at The Nerdery in a Week

FIVE

We’re Honored

Not to brag, but based on employee surveys, we ranked #1 on the Best Places to Work list published by Mpls-St. Paul Business Journal, and also made Top Workplace lists published by Minneapolis Star Tribune and Minnesota Monthly. The Nerdery routinely makes the Inc 5000 and Biz Journal Fast 50 lists of fast-growing privately owned companies. Our CEO Mike Derheim was named a Minnesotan on the Move and was a CFO of the Year finalist when he was our CFO. The Nerdery was named Emerging Business of the Year at the 2011 Best in Business Awards. We’ve also had the honor of riding the coattails of our partners in winning a Cannes Golden Lion Award, Microsoft's Phizzpop Design Challenge, a Communication Arts Award, a PRSA Bronze Anvil Award, a Racie Award, a MOBI Best Mobile App Award and a Webby Award. Speech? Enough said.

Co-Presidents, All of Us

You’ll notice many Nerdery email signatures share the same lofty co-title; we have good reason to aspire to be Co-Presidents. Before his tragic passing, our co-founder Luke Bucklin was our President. Co-President was something he called us – all of us – in a staff email well over a thousand words, including these:

“I remember a day when there were no managers, no directors, no coordinators and no specialists. We only had Presidents. Well, maybe one President and a couple of Co-Presidents. Forget about your titles. Put your business card on the desk in front of you. Look at it. I am here to tell you that this is not your title. This card does not define you. You are a Co-President. You are bigger than your defined role, and you are much more than your job title. Play your part – transcend your job title, be a hero.”

Overnight Website Challenge

Our annual 24-hour Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge debuted in 2008 in the Twin Cities, started in Chicago in 2011 and will rear its head in other cities in the near future, pairing more volunteer web pros with nonprofit organizations in need of nerdy deeds done dirt cheap. We share The Jefferson Award and The Quality of Life Award with staff and friends throughout the development community. We believe successful businesses have all the more responsibility to give something back; our pro bono nerdathon for nonprofits gives us an opportunity to apply our time and talent toward the greater good.

For Nerds By Nerds

Choo-choo-choosing talent

We’ve become unstumpable by growing our capabilities and hoarding interactive talent, yet our acceptance rate of applicants is historically less than half that of Harvard, by our (non-Ivy League) math. We’re always recruiting the next generation of nerds.

Dogs do duty here

Dogs are a nerd’s best friend. Every day is dog day at The Nerdery, with several four-legged friends tagging behind their masters. Some are regulars and some are more tentative sniffers. All are welcome and a part of what gives The Nerdery its “working-from-home” feel.

Ecology of Nerds

Projects succeed when they have just the right mix of skills and resources. The Nerdery helps its partners balance the nerd ecology on their projects to promote successful and sustainable interactive projects.